


Mobius Strip

by SouthernMoonshine



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-31
Updated: 2013-01-31
Packaged: 2017-11-27 17:38:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/664648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernMoonshine/pseuds/SouthernMoonshine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you are your brother's guardian and he is yours, where do you end and he begins? (Alternate title: That One Time Dave and Dirk Creeped Rose Out).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mobius Strip

==>Be the coolkid.

That is you. You are the star.

==>Meet your ancestors.

That’s them, across the way, all in sharp formation and staring at you. Your eyes skip over Egbert teeth, Harley guns, and Lalonde hair; they land on the one in the lead, in all his Strider glory, and you heart skips a beat.

He looks at you, and goddamn if your heat doesn’t pick up in double-time, slamming a harsh rhythm against your chest. You’re glad you’ve got your hood up because your ears are burning with the sudden rush of heat, anticipation, muddled clawing _grief_ because oh god and hell he _looks just like Bro._ He is and he isn’t, and you see it all in the shift of posture, the slight flaring of nostrils. Your heart aches and your chest feels tight but do you show it? Damn straight you _don’t_ , all is chill as the North Pole up here. Chill as the Land of Frost and Frogs. 

John, of course, bounds over and starts chattering, followed by everyone else. You can tell, though, the Bro-clone is looking at you the entire time. It’s in the tip of his shades. He’s watching you and you’re watching him and you don’t know how much longer you can keep breathing with the taste of salt and iron in your mouth like unshed tears and a lip bitten to the blood.

Introductions you vaguely hear, because you know his name and he knows yours. “Dirk,” you say, voice even and disinterested.

“Dave,” he returns, and his voice is just as full of passive ennui. You both nod to one another, the slightest tip of heads.

You can’t take it any more. You have to _know._ And when you step aside, away from the chattering group, he follows. Your strides in perfect tandem as you move aside, to a clearer space. The buzz of conversation turns to questions, then exclamations as you both draw your swords. You’re ignoring them all, focused on the _one thing that matters right now._ Davesprite is at your back, spreading his wing and arms, keeping everyone back.

“We’re doing this,” you breathe.

“We’re making it happen,” he answers.

_Perfect._

And you begin.

==>Strife!

The first step is a casual, walking lead-in to flash-stepping and you both fly at one another at right angles. Sneakers skid and squeak and your boots tap-tap-tap and in a bright clear rhythm and with a bright clean clash of swords you meet. Hold for a breath, faces impassive over the blades, and back and away and forwards again. Up and down, first in silence, then in sudden bright taunts and raps. The words flow easy and you start to feel a smile. He’s smiling too, and your heart both leaps for joy and twists in grief. Bro he is and Bro he isn’t, and you can see yourself in him and your Bro all at once. You read his feint and attack over it - Bro’d taught you that one and Dirk blocks in the perfect twist you’d invented and suddenly you both grin at one another, wild and perfect and sad.

You both spin apart with matching barks of laughter and now it’s _on_ like it wasn’t before, both of you pushing, flinging, testing and back and forth, swords dancing, words forgotten in the sudden violent intensity of it. This, this! You’re suddenly on equal footing with the legend you’ve known all your life! No longer is he older, taller, stronger - now you’re within inches of eachother and both sixteen and you can tell he’s not had a living sparring partner for some time. He leaves openings that you dart the flat of your sword into, but he’s _faster_ still than anyone else and you’re not the only one with stinging welts shaped like a katana’s slim curve. It’s all you’ve longed for and so much more and you realize you’re both _laughing_ and you should be wearing that Strider poker-face but _goddamn you’ve missed this_ and the precision and control and unrestrained madness of it all. Swords and kicks and puppets and ninja-stars and through it all the brightness in his face, in his eyes behind his shades when you block and press so close that bodyheat is a thing shared between you and you can see eachother’s eyes so clearly despite dark glasses. There are tears in his eyes and he can see yours too but it’s grief and longing and _relief_ all at once and you’ve come together now as two parts of a whole.

You see yourself and Bro in him. And you know he sees the same.

You’re together and the fit is effortless, seamless, and you spin away to stand back-to-back. Controlled breathing into even deep breaths, poker faces back on. Back-to-back and your shoulders are of a height. Solid warm presence, sweat between your shoulderblades and salt on your upper lip. You can feel his heart racing, a counter-beat to yours.

The others are all staring in shock, but Davesprite is smiling sadly and you feel a pang of guilt and grief. You have what you needed - and he is still only half. But when he flies closer, Dirk takes in a deeper breath, then nods just so. Together you will all make it work, come hell or high water and you _know this_ like you have never known anything else before.

==>Introduce Dirk to the trolls

The trolls make Dirk nervous. Understandable, since for the whole of his life they were the fuckin’ aliens bent on human destruction. But seeing you and Karkat chill as palemates and you and Terezi flirt and play as matesprits makes him calm down, try to accept them. And you know it’s working when you catch him rapping at Karkat, who looks patently annoyed. It devolves into a mini-strife but Karkat’s holding his claws back and Dirk is just goofing off and you know he’s trying hard for you. 

You’re constantly together, you or one of your time selves, helping him get better, stronger, level up, run up that echeladder. He has only to pester you and you’re there, and it’s the same for you - a call and he’s there, hopping through one of the strange space-windows Roxy seems to have lying around everywhere.

==>Be accused.

Jake has this awful attitude about you and it’s not until Rose steps in that you know why. She tells you in scathing scolding tones that you and Dirk are closing everyone out, being selfishly absorbed, losing sight of the team.

You’re surprised that she’s missing the fact that you and Dirk and Davesprite and the trolls are usually chumming it together, taking out the really _big_ skeletal monsters and giving Dirk the kills. 

But no, she’s accusing you and Dirk of being too _infatuated_ with one another to care about teamwork.

And you laugh in her face, tell her to stop being so goddamn jealous, it’s pathetic, and answer Dirk’s pesterchum message.

This relationship is so very different from everyone else’s. John and his grandma-clone are a little iffy, Rose and Roxy’s relationship is rocky as vodka on ice, and Jade and Jake get frustrated with eachother and fight.

You and Dirk have fallen into lockstep and you march to the beat of the same drummer. You don’t know where you learned it all, who really started it; it’s an infinite loop, a palindrome, a mobius strip. You taught him and he taught you and it all blends together into a perfect seamless whole. You don’t know how to explain that to her - how you’ve both been desperately _missing something_ and you’ve now found it. You and Davesprite have perfect synchronicity because _he is you_ , but Dirk and you move in absolute tandem because you’re two parts of the same body.

No-one else had a brother instead of a father, no-one else had that added closeness and camaraderie. A brother, you explain to Karkat and Terezi, is more of an equal than a lusus-guardian. Karkat grumpily declares you’re pale-cheating on him but you can tell he doesn’t really mind. It’s just the closest analogy he knows. Terezi is fascinated, and licks Dirk every chance she gets, though she says she likes Davesprite’s orange better. He tingles her tongue. Davesprite just rolls his eyes.

==>Ask your sprite-self about this.

Davesprite is utterly chill with your relationship with Dirk. That kinda surprised you, until he confessed that really, being a sprite and part crow now made it a little harder to hang onto human hangups. He smiles at you, says he’s glad for you and he likes Dirk, but he’s perfectly fine with this. How things are. Dirk treats him like himself (unlike John or Jake) and the trolls treat him like he’s another one of them and you’re all cool. So it’s cool.

==>Ask Dirk about it.

Sometimes it still feels weird to call him Dirk and not Bro. He’s confessed the same to you. So you tell him what Rose said. He stares in that particularly deadpan way, then laughs because he’s with you and when it’s just the two of you you’ve dropped all the poker-faced bullshit. It doesn’t really work because you both know one another’s moods, the real meanings and the tells. So while you’re holed up in his room on his planet and jamming out sweet new beats, you talk and talk truthfully. It stings your tongue and shakes you brain but by now you’re almost used to it.

He explains his crush on Jake, having the decency to blush red against the ghost of freckles, and you tease him only a little. But that explains the hostility, makes it clear as crystal. Dirk also explains how they’d naturally split into gendered teams, and now that you’re with him, well, Jake is probably feeling the lack. John’s competent, sure, but Dirk he is _not_ and the two of you share a smile.

You don’t really know why you’ve started the honesty thing, or how you’ll often lose the shades together while sitting side-by-side and talking, orange-hazel and albino red meeting in quick glances. Maybe, you think it’s because you both have so much to lose _again_ , and so much time is wasted in the bullshit coolkid fuckery. Maybe it’s because you’re on level footing at last and you both know it. Maybe it’s because you both need this, the comfort of it, running too close on the heels of guilt and grief. You’ve flung yourselves together and sometimes it _scares_ you how deep he _knows_ you but sometimes you’ll say a word or move just so and he gets that raw vulnerable look in his eyes that matches how you feel and you figure it’s pretty mutual.

But he knows.

And you know.

And so when Rose tries to break you two up, make you work with Roxy instead, you both give her the coolkid blank stare, then turn on your heels and walk away.

Two halves of a seamless whole. You still can’t find where he ends and where you begin - there’s so much of you in him, so much of him in you. You shaped and formed eachother in fighting move and spoken word and patterns of thinking, and it shows, oh it _shows._

Shows when you join the whole team, and every motion mirrors the other, a constant humming awareness of where you are and he is, and the others stare at you and Rose sharply asks which of you is the shadow.

You and Dirk both snort. “Neither,” you and Dirk and Davesprite all say in perfect unison, Texas drawl soft and steady. “We’re the motherfuckin’ sun come to shine on all you fools and show you your folly.”

Rose...takes a step back. 

You want to smile, but instead you and Dirk share a coolkid nod. You’re not one, you’re not alone. You’re together and you’re whole, a mobius strip of badassery and a force unconquerable. Time and Heart, working to bolster one another instead of tearing eachother apart. 

Time heals all wounds, even those of the heart, they say.

The Heart can draw the passage of time into itself and come out stronger.

You are a force unconquerable, you and Dirk.


End file.
